Japanese buyers of the game have opened their boxes to find no instruction manuals, instead Nintendo has included a small piece of paper showing where they can download a digital version...

I'm really not happy about this, I've always loved my Super Mario manuals (particularly when they're yellow and feature cute art and mad-cap warning messages).

I fear the same could happen in the West, which would be terrible as far as I'm concerned. As a collector, a large part of the appeal of owning physical copies, are instruction manuals and the attention to detail that goes into some.

Fucking tree people!

(jk)

All manuals should go away. How many times do we actually look at them? Once? Maybe twice? When was the last time you actually NEEDED a manual to get through a game? Good riddance I say.

Sadly, this is indicative of a larger trend... that I wrote about as soon as I opened up Portal 2.

I'm one of the duders who don't really feel the need to have a manual anymore, most games are good enough at showing you how to play the game in the game instead of reading about it beforehand.

Its heartbreaking for sure, but I got over it.
 
But now I'm boggling my mind on how they save so much paper and costs in other departments with changes like this that they still ask so much for the goddamn games themselves.

That's cool, I already know how to jump in Mario.

Argh. Good manuals are a dying breed. AND I AM ANGRY!

Since we've reached the age of in-game tutorials and story exposition, instruction booklets serve no real function other than smelling and looking nice. Back when games forced you to read the book to understand what was going on, they were very necessary. That time has passed.
 
That's not to say I don't like a good, thick, colorful, glue or spiral bound instruction book. However I'd rather have nothing than a tiny slip of paper with no useful information, for which a URL to a PDF does not count.

You should probably end this game collecting habit before this next generation of games, or you may be severely disappointed.

GTA had cool manuals. But they weren't really instruction guides, more like a fake brochure.

@Cloudenvy said:

I'm one of the duders who don't really feel the need to have a manual anymore, most games are good enough at showing you how to play the game in the game instead of reading about it beforehand.

Amazing...Where the fuck do you write your notes?!

Lately, Nintendo's been doing a great job of showing players the way in-game, using new features they've intelligently designed into a few games now.

If I was in charge, I would have turned a Super Mario 3D Land's manual into an Augmented Reality one, creating more value and appeal to players, and making it just that little bit more justifiable in this day and age.

Of course I expected this sort of thing would happen eventually, even with Nintendo, but now feels a little too abrupt. I feel manuals still have a role to play, certainly among younger players.

Meh save some trees. It's not like most people even look at the manual nowadays anyway.

GTA had cool manuals. But they weren't really instruction guides, more like a fake brochure.

Amazing...Where the fuck do you write your notes?!

Lately, Nintendo's been doing a great job of showing players the way in-game, using new features they've intelligently designed into a few games now.

If I was in charge, I would have turned a Super Mario 3D Land's manual into an Augmented Reality one, creating more value and appeal to players, and making it just that little bit more justifiable in this day and age.

Of course I expected this sort of thing would happen eventually, even with Nintendo, but now feels a little too abrupt. I feel manuals still have a role to play, certainly among younger players.

Manuals used to exist to fill in backstory and provide tutorials that are now both integrated into the game. Keeping them around to feed nostalgia or fuel the collector mentality seems pointless.

Though I foresee printed manuals becoming a thing for collectors editions, like cloth maps which used to be standard in most CRPGS.

What about those kids without internet access?

This has been going on for a while now for alot of newer games.

Going greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!!!

@MrKlorox said:

@SamFo said:

GTA had cool manuals. But they weren't really instruction guides, more like a fake brochure.

Yeah, those that use their printed materials for immersion purposes (like GTA pamphlets/newspapers, survival guides/tactical manuals that are written in some kind of fantasy protocol) are the only ones worth making IMO. Unless Mario 3D Land was supposed to have a long handwritten letter from the Mushroom Council explaining why Mario must butt-stomp goombas, I'm not missing anything.

@Contro said:

Amazing...Where the fuck do you write your notes?!

Lately, Nintendo's been doing a great job of showing players the way in-game, using new features they've intelligently designed into a few games now.

If I was in charge, I would have turned a Super Mario 3D Land's manual into an Augmented Reality one, creating more value and appeal to players, and making it just that little bit more justifiable in this day and age.

Of course I expected this sort of thing would happen eventually, even with Nintendo, but now feels a little too abrupt. I feel manuals still have a role to play, certainly among younger players.

I'd assume in the 3DS note taking app thing. AR manuals sound pretty awesome, but since you'd have to exit the game to look at the manual, that would make it cumbersome. Unless you were talking about storing the manual in the game cart, in which case why use AR and place cards and stuff when you could just pull it up in the menu?

I'm confident such a feature could be designed so that you wouldn't have to exit. A hold this shoulder button down prompt, in order to run the AR camera software on the top or bottom screen, could work.

I was originally thinking along the lines of AR maps for RPG's, that would have some genuine use and appeal for players - maps could be updated via StreetPass giving the impression of active worlds.

I don't really read manuals any more but I think that's pretty lame. I like to have the full package. Hopefully this doesn't become the new thing like the terrible new game cases with PLASTIC MISSING!

I like manuals, sad that they are going away....at least Atlus usually still provides decent manuals.

I WANT my manual with COLOR pictures in it!!! God, I remember back in the day where there were sections in the back of manuals to take notes where I would write down level codes and such.

It's out in Japan officially today, there should be footage appearing all over the place.